If You Are A Cliffhanger Ending
by who0wnsmyh34rt
Summary: Melinda Turner was held captive for a week and almost killed, when she was saved by the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI. The unit could not keep the man in custody, and Melinda needs protection. This puts someone from the unit in an awkward situation.
1. Chapter 1

"_It's only in love and in murder that we still remain sincere._" -FRIEDRICH DÜRRENMATT

She ran. She knew she was being chased, and she knew that if she stopped or slowed down, she would be killed. Leaves crunched under her feet. Trees flew by. Her sky blue hair flew in and out of her face. She could hear her heartbeat inside her ears, it felt like it was going to explode from her chest. Still yet, she ran faster. Her pursuer was close behind her with a bat in his hand. She looked back for only a second to look at him. Before she turned her head back around, she tripped, her foot caught under the root of a tree. She hit the ground hard and cried out with her ankle searing in pain. Her pursuer caught up to her and dropped on top of her, leaning in to her face.

"You've got pretty eyes. Green is my favorite color." His breath was rancid. His face was greasy, as was his hair.

She started crying, begging the man for her life. "Please, please, I'll do anything you want, just please don't kill me!"

The man smiled. "You'll still die." He started to unbutton her shorts. She cried harder, trying to get away, but the man was too heavy for her to move. She started to come to terms with the fact that she would be dead in a few minutes.

"FBI, drop the weapon and get off the girl, NOW!" A man's voice came from beside them, and she looked over to see three FBI agents pointing guns at the man on top of her. The man let go of the bat, but he picked up a rock, and before she could move out of the way, he rammed her head with it.

She woke up in a hospital bed. Her head was throbbing. She tried to sit up, but she only moved a little. She felt around her bed for the nurse button, and she pushed it. A few seconds later, a perky redheaded nurse entered the room.

"You're awake! How do you feel?" She said, her voice just a little too high-pitched.

The girl smiled a little. "My head hurts really bad. Is there any medicine I can have?"

"Your doctor said you shouldn't have medicine for at least twenty-four hours. I'm sorry, Melinda." The nurse said. "But, since you're awake so fast, the FBI might still want to speak with you. Are you feeling okay enough for that?"

"The FBI? What do they want with me?"

The nurse sighed. "I'll let them tell you, but first, your doctor has to check up on you now you're awake. I'll send him in." Then, she walked out.

Melinda sighed, herself. She remembered what had happened, and she immediately pushed it out of her mind. She didn't want to think about it. She never wanted to think about it again. She shut her eyes hard, but all she saw was that man's face…

"Melinda? I'm Doctor Spencer Reid with the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI, do you mind if I ask you a few questions?" She opened her eyes to see a very skinny, well-dressed young man with short, messy light brown hair and a messenger bag strapped around his torso. His hands were in his pockets, and he had a warm look in his eyes, unlike what you would think an FBI agent would look like.

She smiled at him and motioned for him to sit in the chair next to her bed. "Not at all, but what is this about? Didn't you catch that man?"

Doctor Reid sighed as he sat down. "Unfortunately, no. He got away. That's why I'm here, so I can try to get a better idea as to where he might be going."

Melinda's head throbbed harder, like something was trying to warn her. "So…he's still out there? He can still hurt me?"

"Yes, and no. He's out there, but he's not going to hurt you. You're going to be accompanied by either a U.S. Marshall or someone from within the Bureau from the moment you get out of the hospital to the moment John Astrim is caught. You have no reason to be afraid." John. That man had a name, obviously, but Melinda didn't think of him as a person with a name and a life and possibly a credit score. She thought of him as a monster who had made a week of her life a living Hell. In the middle of her thoughts, Doctor Reid touched her arm. "It's alright. Are you sure you're okay to answer questions?"

She blinked heavily, then looked at him and smiled. "I'm fine. Hit me with your questions, Doctor Reid."

He smiled back, then pulled out a pen and a legal pad from his bag. "So, do you have any idea where he was going to take you, if he was going to take you anywhere at all?"

"No, he didn't mention any specific place. All he said before I got away was that he was going to do more things to me."

"Okay, and was he driving on any street or in any specific direction that you can remember?"

She tried to remember. All she remembered was the man touching her, incredibly inappropriately, and swerving all over the road while he was doing it. "I can't-I don't remember anything like that. I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I'm just asking questions, there's no right or wrong answer to any of them." Doctor Reid smiled again, and Melinda found herself growing more and more fond of his smile. "So, did he tell you anything out of the ordinary while you were with him? A story maybe, about his past or about someone who might have represented him?"

"Represented him? What is that supposed to mean?"

"Well, often, killers will talk to their victims about things that have happened in in their past, but they won't let their victims know it's about them. They usually try to let them figure it out on their own, then when they realize it-"

"It's too late." She finished his sentence.

He stared at her. "Uh, yeah. So, did he do any of that?"

"Yeah, he did, kind of. He told me about a place up in Woodbridge. He said it was part of a park, but it was closed off. He said he'd heard it was pretty there. He said he wanted to visit it." She remembered the conversation clearly. After that was when she got away. Her legs hurt, remembering all the running she did.

Doctor Reid watched as Melinda stared blankly into space, wondering if he should ask her more questions or not. He was normally good at these kinds of things. He would ask the surviving victim questions in order to try and locate their captor better, and he would do it with ease, but there was something about this girl that made him uneasy. He felt a little nervous talking to her. He had no idea why. Pretty girls didn't normally make him nervous, they were just there, and he would either pass by or he would interact with them as needed. Still yet, Doctor Reid tried to continue his questioning. "In the Woodbridge park? Where you got away? There is a restricted part of the park, but I don't know why it's restricted. I'll have to look that up." He wrote down what he needed, then started to get up.

Melinda looked confused. "You don't need to ask me anymore questions?"

"Well, I might, but it looks like your doctor was supposed to see you first, and not me. I'll be back a little later to see if you remember anything else." Doctor Reid gestured to the door, and Melinda looked to see a doctor in a white lab coat and scrubs standing in the doorway.

"I'll let you know when you can come back, Doctor Reid." He stepped out of the way, and the increasingly adorable FBI agent walked out, waving back to Melinda as he did. She stared after him, smiling a little. She didn't know she was staring until her doctor waved his hand in front of her face. "You like him?" He said when Melinda looked at him.

"I, uhm, I guess. He seems nice, for someone who works for the FBI." She let the doctor take her blood pressure while she talked. "But, is there anything wrong with me? How long have I been unconscious?"

The doctor laughed a little. "Easy now, Miss Turner. You're fine, you just have a mild concussion, a few bruises, and a fractured ankle, nothing we can't fix. You've been out for a little over three hours. Your blood pressure is fine, which means you're not in any kind of traumatic state." He took the strap off her arm and looked at her. "You're okay to answer more questions from Doctor Reid?"

Melinda nodded. "Yes, I am."

The doctor smiled, then stood up. "I'll send him back in." He walked out, and Melinda waited in her bed. She felt like she had to go to the bathroom, so she attempted to get up, but her ankle hurt like hell when she tried to stand on it. Nonetheless, she took a few steps towards the bathroom.

"FUCK! This hurts so fucking bad…" She spoke to herself, or so she thought.

"Are you alright?" Doctor Reid's voice came from behind her, and she felt his hands on her arms, holding her up. "You shouldn't be walking by yourself, your ankle is-"

"Fractured, I know, but I have to go to the bathroom." She looked at him, and was surprised to see worry in his eyes. "Would you help me in there?"

Doctor Reid held her arms, his mouth open. "I-um-I don't think I'm supposed to do that…"

Melinda rolled her eyes. "I'm sure you can help me walk into the bathroom, Doctor Reid."

"I guess so." Doctor Reid wrapped Melinda's arm around his shoulder and they slowly made their way into the bathroom. After letting her go, he stared at her. "I don't have to help you-?"

"No! I can do that by myself! Wait for me outside!" She pushed him out and shut the door in his face. He wasn't used to doors being slammed in his face, but it didn't make him angry. He just waited beside the door and bounced his foot up and down until she opened up again. He helped her back to her bed, then sat in a chair across the room.

"Hello, again." He said, smiling.

"Hello, Doctor Reid."


	2. Chapter 2

_**A/N: I'm going to start putting songs at the end of chapters. The purpose they serve is to portray the mood of the chapter, so if you wanna scroll down & get the song, it would be cool to listen to it while reading :) Also, my music taste is VERY out there & all over the place, so don't be surprised if one day you're listening to Underoath & the next you're listening to Miley Cyrus :3 Please review! I would very much like your feedback&criticism. ON WITH THE STORY...**_

"Hello, Doctor Reid." Melinda smiled back. "You have more questions for me?"

Doctor Reid pulled out his pad and pencil again, knowing he didn't need it because of his eidetic memory, but also not wanting her to ask him why he didn't need to write anything down. "Did you communicate with Astrim much? Did he ask you questions, or call you by a different name?"

"Katherine. He called me Katherine, or Kate. It was strange because he acted like he knew I wasn't Katherine, but he called me that anyway." Melinda tried not to close her eyes, or else she would feel him hitting her again, feel him on top of her, taking her clothes off.

"He was trying to make his fantasy real, whatever his fantasy may be. You remembering that is actually very helpful, I'll have to check that name." Doctor Reid spoke while he wrote. "Would you be willing to do an exercise with me, to take you through what you can remember? It would be extremely helpful, and it might help you feel a little better."

Melinda thought about it. She wasn't feeling too well, and she really wanted to rest. "Could you come back tomorrow? I'd like to take it easy for a little bit. I shouldn't have been walking on my ankle, now it's throbbing a little."

"Oh, do you want me to get your doctor?" Doctor Reid stood up.

"No, it's okay. I just want some rest." Melinda smiled at him.

He grabbed his bag, and put his things back inside it. "Well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow." Doctor Reid walked out of Melinda Turner's hospital room, smiling. He had no idea why he was smiling. He and his team, for the first time in years, had failed to keep an unsub in custody, but for some reason, he felt like they weren't supposed to catch him yet. He felt like they still had more to learn about him before they put him away.

"What are _you_ so smiley about?" Doctor Reid heard his co-worker, Special Agent Emily Prentiss, say. He looked up at her and saw that she was accompanied by Agent Derek Morgan. They were standing in front of the nurse's station.

Doctor Reid stopped in front of them. "What? I'm not smiley."

"Oh, yes you are, and I think I know why." Morgan stated, with his milk-white smile in tow. He turned to Prentiss. "Reid has the hots for Melinda Turner. Which, I don't blame him. She's gorgeous."

Prentiss gasped, fake, of course. "Reid! She's just been through the most traumatizing thing in her life, and you have the hots for her? You are awful."

Doctor Reid could feel the mouthful of words about to explode from his lips. "What are you talking about? I don't have the hots for her! I was asking her questions about John Astrim! How does that mean I'm attracted to her? That's just simply ridiculous, I mean-"

"Reid, calm down. We're just giving you a hard time." Morgan laughed. "So, what did you get from her? Does she remember anything?"

"She remembers him calling her Katherine, and she said he knew she wasn't Katherine, but he called her that anyway. She wants us to come back tomorrow for more questions." They had started walking out of the hospital.

"You mean, she wants _you_ to come back tomorrow for more questions." Morgan said, getting into the driver's seat of one of the FBI issued Suburbans. His smile flashed in the rearview mirror, and Doctor Reid sighed. He hated when his team teased him like this, but there was nothing he could do about it. If he got too worked up, they would just use that reaction to "confirm" what they were teasing him about. His team viewed him as a child, and that annoyed him to no end.

Doctor Reid remained silent in the back seat on the ride back to the FBI headquarters, and once there, he headed to the office of the BAU's technical analyst (aka, computer geek/hacker), Penelope Garcia.

"Whatchya got for me, sweet cheeks?" The bubbly blonde smiled at Doctor Reid, and he smiled back at her.

"I need you to cross check a name with John Astrim's acquaintances. Katherine."

Garcia turned in her chair to a computer screen, and started typing. After a few moments, a picture popped on the screen, of a girl who looked just like Melinda Turner. Her hair was dyed blue, she had tattoos on her chest and arms, and there were even resemblances in her facial structure.

Garcia took in a breath. "She looks just like-"

"Melinda." Doctor Reid finished her sentence. "What's her name, and her connection to Astrim?"

"Name is Katherine Melbourne, she was born and raised in Woodbridge. She went to college with Astrim. She was killed ten years ago, and her boyfriend was killed a year before her. She had a son, who became a ward of the state after she died, and the trail ends there."

Doctor Reid kept staring at the picture. "Who killed her?"

"The police never got him. Her body was found in the Woodbridge park. She had been dead for over a week, oh my god." She looked up at Doctor Reid, who was leaning over her shoulder. "It was him, John Astrim! You found his diary in his apartment, he had been writing about a girl in it, hadn't he?"

"He wrote about a girl he loved, how she played hard to get with him, and how he finally got her. I thought he was talking about Melinda, but he wasn't." Doctor Reid started walking out of Garcia's office, giving her a "thank you" before he quickly made his way to the rest of the BAU team, who were in the briefing room. "Melinda wasn't his first."

Their team leader, Aaron Hotchner, stared at Doctor Reid. "What?"

"Melinda told me Astrim called her Katherine, so I had Garcia check the name. Katherine Melbourne came up. She looked exactly like Melinda, she went to college with Astrim, and she was killed ten years ago. Police never found who killed her."

"Ten years? He's waited ten years?" Agent David Rossi asked, shock on his face.

"Melinda had to have been a trigger for him." Agent Morgan said. "He might have seen her somewhere and if she looks just like his first kill, he couldn't leave her alone. He's too impulsive for that."

"Exactly," Doctor Reid said. He walked over to the map of Woodbridge and the surrounding areas, picking up a marker on his way. "Melinda was taken three miles from her apartment building in Quantico, on her daily run. Astrim took her to the basement under his mother's house, which was ten miles from the Woodbridge park, tortured and molested her for a week, then put her in his car and started driving her to the Woodbridge park. He was going to take her here," Doctor Reid circled a small portion of the park. "To kill her, but she got away. He was going to kill her and bury her body in the exact spot that he buried Katherine Melbourne ten years ago."

"Oh my god…" Emily Prentiss said, her mouth hanging open. "That part of the park is restricted."

"We've been thinking that John Astrim is on a psychotic break this entire time, when he's in the early stages of being completely lost in a delusion, and by taking Melinda from him, we've furthered that delusion. He won't stop until he kills her, he can't. He thinks she's Katherine Melbourne, and if she won't love him, he'll kill her." Doctor Reid looked at his team and the shocked looks on their faces.

Morgan's face went from shocked, to angry. "We let that son of a bitch go."

"Morgan…" Hotch warned, but Morgan didn't listen.

"WE LET HIM GO, HOTCH!" Hotch sighed. "We didn't let him go, he ran too fast for us to catch him. There was nothing we could do, Morgan."

"He's right. We'll get him soon enough." Rossi said, smiling. "The main thing is, Melinda Turner is safe. He hasn't killed anyone else."

"That we know of." Doctor Reid chimed in again, not realizing that what he said might have made things worse.

"Thanks, Reid," Prentiss said, laughing a little.

Hotch sighed and picked up a file that was sitting on the table. "Reid, you'll go back to the hospital first thing tomorrow morning and take Melinda through memory exercises. See if she can remember anything having to do with Astrim living anywhere else. We'll be here, waiting for new information and sorting through the old information to see if we've missed anything. As for now, I think we could all use some rest."

Doctor Reid knew Hotch was right. He needed rest, but his mind refused to give it to him. He never got much sleep, but he was used to it, so he gave himself useless tasks around his house until he felt like he couldn't stay awake anymore, then he drug himself to his bedroom and played chess against himself in his mind until he fell asleep.

**_Song: "So Far From Your Weapon" - The Dead Weather_**


	3. UPDATE

**Hey guys!**

**I'm REALLY REALLY REALLYYYY sorry about not updating, I have about 75% of the story written, but just not the beginning. You all should know how that is.**

**I'll be updating soon, I don't know how soon though. The next chapter is coming together nicely, but it's just not up to par with the rest of the story yet.**

**But for now, i'd love it if you guys would tell me what you expect from the story, even though it's only two chapters in :) you don't have to if you don't want, but I would highly appreciate it!**

**So, review telling me what you expect from the story! Love you guys! 3**


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